1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument which can generate tones of a wind instrument and the like.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, there is provided an electronic musical instrument which simulates the acoustic wind instrument such as the recorder and flute. Like the acoustic wind instrument, this electronic wind instrument provides the predetermined number of keys by which a plurality of tone pitches can be designated. This electronic wind instrument generates the sound in response to the breath applied thereto.
The above-mentioned conventional electronic wind instrument designates the tone pitch by operating plural keys by fingers of a performer, so that it requires the specific performance technique exclusively used when performing the wind instrument. However, there is a problem in that when simulating the sounds of other instruments by use of the conventional electronic musical instrument, the performance of other instruments cannot be carried out due to the special relationship between the key operation and breath which simulate the acoustic wind instrument. For example, when performing the accompaniment in addition to the melody, it is difficult for the conventional electronic wind instrument to control the accompaniment.
For example, if complicated finger operation is required for the electronic wind instrument when performing the music with tonality other than regular tonality, e.g., C major or C minor, it is very difficult for the performer to play the music according to the score. Even if music consisting of notes belonging to plural octaves is played in the same tonality, e.g., C major or C minor, octave change must complicate the finger operation of performer.
In order to ease the above-mentioned difficulty, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 55-126296 entitled "ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT WITH TRANSPOSITION DEVICE" was invented. The disclosed electronic musical instrument simplifies the finger operation by changing the tonality.
In addition, an automatic accompaniment function can be provided to the above-mentioned electronic musical instrument. Herein, it is possible for the performer to perform the melody with reading out data representative of auto-bass chords (ABC) of the automatic accompaniment from the chord sequencer.
When the tonality is changed with respect to the melody to be performed, such change of tonality affects all of the musical tones to be sounded, by which the accompanied ABC must be subject to the change of tonality (i.e., transposition). As a result, the ABC patter must be out of range of the tone area which is preset in the chord sequencer. For this reason, there is another problem in that the performance cannot be made with the desirable tonality.
There is another type of electronic musical instrument as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 63-298292 entitled "SEQUENCER OF ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT". In such electronic musical instrument, plural data banks each storing an arbitrary chord are set in the chord memory; and the access order indicative of the order of sequentially accessing the data banks is programmed by operating the sequence program switches. When performing the music, the automatic performance is carried out in accordance with the pre-stored program by operating the play switch.
However, the electronic musical instrument simulating the wind instrument has a limited number of keys. This makes the operation of program switches and keys complex. Thus, operation for the chord performance affects the finger operation. In other words, there is a further problem in that the operation of changing over the data bank in the middle of the performance may break the performance which must be carried out continuously.